An overview of the key trends impacting digital and news publishers in 2019

1. GUARDIAN PUBLISHING
TRENDS 2019

2. 1. The storification of social
2. No silver bullet to the data debate
3. Post-literate publishing
4. New revenue models for news
5. Short, long, fast or slow?
Publishing trends with a sprinkling of truth

3. THE STORIFICATION
OF SOCIAL

4. THE STORIFICATION
OF SOCIAL

5. Facebook has had better years
“You said 'follow up' or
'get back to you' a lot! 31
times to be exact!"
31% decline in time
spent!
EMBED VIDEO

6. One of those options is “Stories”

8. If you can’t join them, beat them
Instagram stories overtook Snapchat’s three year head start in just eight months

9. The publisher opportunity
The Guardian on
Instagram:
1.4m follower
+57% growth.
60% traffic new to
the Guardian.
INCLUDE ANIMATED GUARDIAN FAKE
OR REAL INSTAGRAM STORY

11. The brand opportunity
Include animated Air BnB ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmT-1RQuMB8
Awaiting Polar ad unit
image

12. WHAT CLIENTS CAN EXPECT
1 Higher CTR versus
Standard Display
● Avoid banner
blindness
● Format
familiarity
2 Higher ATTENTION
time versus Social
3
9 SECS
Average in-view time
Measured by
1-3 SECS
Average in-view time
Reported by
VS
.60% CTR
Polar Benchmark
.06% CTR
Industry Benchmark
VS

13. NO SILVER
BULLET TO THE
DATA DEBATE

14. We don’t all have the luxury of such a purist
approach to advertising

15. Downgrade shipment graph from The Economist

18. Ads build brands in in premium environments

19. But there are still targeting horror stories
“The end result will be ad targeting so effective that you
may well question the notion of free will altogether”
Jamie Bartlett, Medium, Jan 2019

20. Which make the “name on a bottle” coke ad
seem innocent by comparison
VS

21. GDPR will create opportunity: valuing context and
premium environments
TARGETING PAGE DNA
CONTEXT
TARGETING KEYWORD
CONTEXT
CONTEXTUAL PERSONALISED VIDEO
CONTEXTUAL PERSONALISED AUDIO
Using Machine Learning to
Spotlight Quality Journalism
on the Web
EMOTION BASED TARGETING

22. Publishers and broadcasters will try new
approaches

24. POST LITERATE
PUBLISHING

25. What they tell us: Text is reaching a tipping
point
“By 2019, we will contend with a post-literate
society: an era where images and characters will
replace words as the communication of choice for
the majority of consumers. Factor in the growing
rise of the voice technology market (projected to
hit $128 billion by 2024) and the mainstream
adoption of conversational commerce, and by 2019
visuals and voice will likely trump text."
- WGSN’s Andrea Bell, head of Mindset

26. In reality most of us still want to read the news

27. Non text media consumption will be enabled by
5G… the true impact is currently unclear

30. Voice gets even louder in a 5G world
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/31/google-assistant-
was-rigged-to-fire-a-gun-remotely.html
Source: Touchpoints 2018

33. Does all this connectivity mean we’re in
need of a good digital detox?

34. No sign of a slow down among younger
audiences yet!

35. Our audience’s thirst for diverse digital news content is
going nowhere

36. NEW REVENUE
MODELS FOR NEWS

37. “I’m obsessed with the news, it ironically relaxes me,
if I don’t see the news, I don’t feel informed, then I
can’t go about my day properly. CNN is the thinking
man’s reality show.” – Matt Goss

38. Loyalty Schemes and Donations add a new
dimension to “paying” for news
FREE PLUS LOYALTY
SCHEME METERED PAYWALL
FREE PLUS
DONATION
METERED PAYWALLFREE
2017
2019

42. New opportunities to keep an eye on
COLLABORATION EDITORIAL DATA USER CURATED NEWS APP
CURATED AUDIO NEWS
OPINIONS SPANNING THE POLITCAL DIVIDE

43. SHORT, LONG,
FAST OR SLOW?

44. We’re cramming more hours of media
consumption in to our media day… but what with?

45. Long form vs short form choice isn’t as simple
as it used to be (1)

46. Slow news for reading

47. Fast news for watching

48. Facebook Watch and Snapchat Originals for long
form

49. News brands are getting long listed for The
Oscars now

50. There’s a role for editors: we need curation when
there’s so much content choice out there
VS

51. Our five for 2019. Challenge your planning
assumptions!
WHAT THEY SAY WHAT WE SAY
1) The storification of social Facebook struggling reputational
and commercially
The Facebook ecosystem is as strong as ever; Stories
create new publisher and brand opportunities
2) No silver bullet to the data
debate
Digital ads struggle with cut
through
Premium ad inventory enjoys +19.2% ad recall.
Targeting in the post GDPR world will pay more
attention to the power of context.
3) Post-literate publishing Text will reach a tipping point in
2019
Most people want to read the news rather than watch
it. Be wary of claims around popularity of the digital
detox.
4) New revenue models for
news
The competitive landscape is more
fierce than ever for content
creators
In reality new opportunities are to be found in
collaboration, data and reader relationships
5) Short, long, fast or slow? We’re consuming more long form
content than ever. We’re
consuming more short form
content than ever.
Tech entrepreneurs will create opportunities based on
their view of the world. We at the Guardian create
content that spans both ends of the spectrum, fulfilling
a range of consumer need states across media